flashBACK Friday: Closed Captioning Decoder Boxes

Remember watching show on TV sets made before 1993? It wasn’t as simple as pushing your remote control’s CC button, because these old sets didn’t have a pre-installed closed caption decoder box. You had to purchase it separately from retail stores such as Harris Communications.

The mind behind the decoder box was Bill Kastner. As a teen, he had a stuttering problem which made him a likely candidate for thinking out of the box and creating accessible communication technology: The closed caption decoder box.

In the 1970s, the Public Broadcasting channel contracted with Texas Instruments (where Kastner worked) to design a device to allow the deaf to read on-air dialogue. Design it he did: The decoder box takes the captioning that’s embedded in the TV signal, and “decodes” it so it shows up on your screen.

Set-top decoders are available, too, for older TV sets.

Initially, Kastner thought the boxes would sell at Sears, and only in limited supplies worldwide. Little did he know the concept would become so en vogue.

Tags

Comment Policy

We’re aware that issues facing the Deaf, Deaf-Blind, and Hard of Hearing Community can
become quite passionate and divided. What can we say, we’re a group of passionate people!
While we fully support a community full of passion, we also require that comments are respectful.
We think negative attitudes and disrespect are a waste of everyone’s time and energy.
This doesn’t mean you can’t disagree with people, you just need to do it respectfully.
We reserve the right to delete or edit any comments we feel are judgmental, rude, or of attacking nature.